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A is for Antiques

I’m more of a recent antiquer (is that a word?). I mean I’ve always liked antiques (if they had anything to do with the Laura Ingalls Wilder/Little House books era), but the searching never drew me in. Maybe I just never gave it a chance. I mean, I’ve been a mom since I was 19. I was a little busy for a good many years. So this is something that Jim and I have found that we can enjoy together as we enter a whole new part of our lives together. How did I discover this wonderful hobby though?

In 2010, Jim went with me to LauraPalooza 2010 (a conference all about Laura Ingalls Wilder), plus we visited a couple of her homesites on the way. So, on the way home I told him that we would do whatever he wanted all the way from Minnesota, through Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan to home. And we did. One of those things was stopping at antique stores. I was never an antique store lover before that. Jim likes old things and has been a collector since he was a kid. Now he’s more of a peruser. He rarely buys unless it’s something pretty special or cool.

I loved it. I loved browsing and looking for…things.

And I discovered antique photos. I wondered how these family members could end up in an antique store and I mourned that there aren’t a ton of photos of my own family from the turn of the century and before. I decided that I had to give these people a home. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had to make the decision to narrow my collecting to photos of children. And I’ve mostly stuck by that ever since. Although I now like to search for children with interesting other subject matter in the photo (animals, toys, etc.)

I share my collection of antique photos here on my blog. Click on the “Simple Sunday” category in the sidebar.

And I’ve collected other treasures as well. I have an eclectic collection mostly of items that would have been used at least a hundred years ago. I still have many things on my wishlist.

But that’s the fun of the hunt!

*And a big shout out to Arlee Bird. This A to Z Challenge is his baby! He started it four years ago and it has grown by leaps and bounds every year!